"Sitting here listening to this testimony, I don’t believe it,” Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, told the commissioner, John Koskinen, at a hearing of the Ways and Means Committee. “That’s your problem. No one believes you.”

I actually can believe it. I worked at a major software company that had a similar limit on email space. This was not due to incompetence, or limited budget. As explicitly explained to employees, it was to limit the amount of material discoverable in case we were involved in a legal dispute.

Our company was very clear that we were always to behave legally and ethically, and to retain all required records as required by law. But, just as a criminal defense attorney tells their client not to make any public statements, the company's lawyers didn't want to have anything more in the record than was absolutely necessary.

It’s an American tradition to hate Congress, but this is getting out of hand.

In a Gallup poll released yesterday just 7% of Americans reported having “a great deal” or “quite a lot of” confidence in Congress. That’s exactly the same percentage of people who told Gallup they have no confidence in Congress whatsoever and that wasn’t even an option given in the question

This is the most disturbing of the Obama scandals. Turning what is arguably the most powerful of government agencies against normal citizens. Richard Nixon didn't even do that. There is a reason that these disappeared. Because it goes to the White House.

Pretty amazing display of unbridled hubris on the part of this IRS apparatchik. If the IRS doesn't respect the taxpayers, why should taxpayers respect the IRS? The obvious answer is because they can destroy your life and take away your freedom. Of course if enough tax payers got fed up and decided to stop paying taxes all at once, things might get interesting.

“The IRS knew in February, or maybe even in March, and Treasury and the White House knew at least in April — but Congress and the American people didn’t find out until June. Were you purposely not telling us?” House Ways and Means Chair Dave Camp (R-Mich.) asked Koskinen. “Were you purposely not revealing this to the American people?”

The guys with the open investigation are apparently the last to know...

The problem at its root is that only the threat of a perjury charge (proven by either paper, or electronic correspondence) would be sufficient to induce a high ranking official to tell the truth. when the moral standing of our national bureaucrats is in such doubt that telling the truth is seen as a last resort, then you must ask yourself what kind of a future does this republic really have?

I actually can believe it. I worked at a major software company that had a similar limit on email space. This was not due to incompetence, or limited budget. As explicitly explained to employees, it was to limit the amount of material discoverable in case we were involved in a legal dispute.

I worked for a company that a similar policy. The difference being private corporations can't show up at my door requiring SEVEN years worth of documentation and throw me in jail if I don't provide it.

-- No one died. F&F is still the most disturbing; he lied to his own people, to foreign governments, to arm insurgent, non-state actors, with a growing body count. Not only that, but the government tried to force gun dealers to break the law AND punished whistle blowers and rewarded those who broke the law.

The IRS scandal is pretty terrible, but it is not as morally appalling as F&F.

"I actually can believe it. I worked at a major software company that had a similar limit on email space. This was not due to incompetence, or limited budget. As explicitly explained to employees, it was to limit the amount of material discoverable in case we were involved in a legal dispute."

I actually can't. I work for a small county municipality and they can pull emails off the server from the first day I worked here over ten years ago.

Government apparatchiks keep EVERYTHING...you never know when it can be used against someone.

"[Koskinen] said a computer crash and an effort to retrieve the lost messages had occurred before the agency was notified that Congress was receiving complaints from conservative political groups that they were being unfairly scrutinized."

Nonapod, my thoughts exactly. This guy doesn't get it. He's conned himself into believing the IRS version of events, which is just an innocent series of unfortunate happenstances. He doesn't realize that to the average person, this whole episode and the resulting explanations are unconscionable. So he's up there acting all defiant and prick-like instead of being contrite.

The last time this ass testified, he said it would take years to recover the e-mails! He knew then that the hardware had been destroyed! 6 or 7 others had the same hard drive "malfunction"? 10 days after Camp started asking questions?

Yeah, I don't believe him either, in spite of his sanctimonious protestations. "I have never, blah, blah, blah...!"

I'm sure that the MSM and the DOJ will get on this right away!

They just continue the lie about progressive groups also being targeted!

I hope someone is at least asking for hard copies that may have been printed out somewhere, rather than letting them off the hook on the claim of crashing hard drives.

Under Wisconsin state law, each city, village and town, no matter how tiny, has record retention obligations, regardless of whether there is a record request or an investigation. In order to meet these obligations, these governments are expected to take some measure of precaution to avoid loss. Presumably there are similar record retention requirements and similar precautionary expections on the federal level. Regardless of the underlying scandal, the IRS should be called upon the explain why it is unable to fulfill these minimal governmental obligations that that the smallest municipalities are able to handle.

Unbelievable is right. I can't remember the last time I saw a hard drive crash that rendered the platter(s) completely unreadable. What did she do, drop her laptop in a vat of acid?

Also, tiny email boxes and 6 month retention? That's nuts. Lerner was a department head. She probably received upwards of 300+ email a day, plus attachments. According to what's been published about the IRS's tiny space allocations, Lerner must have been archiving her emails every week. Can you imagine that kind of workflow? Need to reference an email from a regional head last month? Hold on while Lerner unpacks her archives.

And we're looking at the period 2009-11... I do not recall some kind of price spike in $/GB for magnetic or optical media during that time. Storage is and has been very cheap for a long while.

The whole thing is just unbelievable. If any of you have worked on the discovery end of civil litigation, I'm sure you're of a similar mind.

I actually can believe it. I worked at a major software company that had a similar limit on email space. This was not due to incompetence, or limited budget. As explicitly explained to employees, it was to limit the amount of material discoverable in case we were involved in a legal dispute.

And I will bet that no one in management or team leads or the like had such limits. Otherwise, your company would be in deep doo-doo if it showed up on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

tim maguire said...Koskinen is quite a piece of work, the smug smile never left his face. I spent half this video hoping Ryan would have him escorted out in handcuffs.

Unbelievable arrogance, blatant in your face attitude, total lack of contrition, zero respect for Congress or the people they represent. His body language said unequivocally "F**K you we do what we want." I wanted Ryan to come around the bench and beat the living shit out of the guy. His attitude shows you the problem we have. He wouldn't display that attitude if he didn't feel he was backed up on it all the way.

Koskinen may become the John Mitchell of this investigation. He may be bright, but he is a very unsympathetic character. I think that Ryan's "no one believes you" statement will play very well because - no one believes Koskinen. I am not sure how the House will be able to resolve this, but if they keep pushing I think someone will turn. If nothing else the IRS will be off the backs of conservative advocacy groups for the upcoming election.The only way to affect all this is through the "power of the purse", i. e. cutting budgets and unfolding activities, making a Republican senate majority even more important.

Hey, everyone has IT problems. Everyone had a computer crash. Everyone looses email.

Throw another squirrel into the crock pot--

Meanwhile...

The most powerful agency in the US Government, with the most advanced date storage (outside the NSA), just happened to lose all of the email from the very persons under investigation, from the same time period, WHILE UNDER INVESTIGATION...

Here's the other thing. Even if Lerner (or someone else) did have a computer crash, they would be getting IT over to fix it (generating a paper trail) and then when the computer couldn't be fixed, getting a new one (paper trail) and getting their work from the backup (another paper trail). After all, they have to do their work, and they would need the backups for that reason.

Plus, as noted, if they did not have backup and archival procedures in place (or those procedures were subverted), that's a federal crime. 15% budget cut for them is a good start, and we need to have someone get to the bottom of this. It's past time to get a special prosecutor on this.

I can believe it but there's no excuse for this. How would the IRS treat an audited taxpayer using the excuse that they lost their records? Heads should roll for this.

If this did tie back to the White House, though, I doubt the records would have shown that--more likely they'd have used some buffers or made the order over the phone so there'd be no record of it. These guys don't leave prints.

"He's not an apparatchik, he's the commissar. It might be a little easier to take if he was just an apparatchik. "

I stand corrected ;o)

My larger point however is that if one of the poorest counties in my state can afford the drive space to archive email indefinitely, on org that dropped a couple mil to make a Star Trek parody training video isn't going to "recycle" hard drives for economical reasons. I call major bullshit.

If this did tie back to the White House, though, I doubt the records would have shown that--more likely they'd have used some buffers or made the order over the phone so there'd be no record of it. These guys don't leave prints.

That would be true if they considered what they were doing illegal from the start. What could have happened is that someone in the White House believed that the Tea Party groups truly did not deserve tax exempt status, and pushed the IRS to investigate that, believing that such an investigation would be legal. Only after the targeting scandal broke did they realize that what they were doing was a problem.

I don't believe it either, because whenever there has been a lawsuit of any big corporation (Arthur Anderson, Goldman are the two that come to mind off the top of my head) they went back month or years.

Even internal problems, someone complains about another person...they read the emails between the two parties and came up with who was the real problem and those people were fired.

When my computer crashes at my job it's also on a server and everything can be accessed again from a new PC.

Bravo Sierra on the IRS!

If this were a Republican president going after "Media Matters" or "Emily's List" we would never hear the end of it from the media.

When I was laid off in 2006, the money in my tax free commuting fund, about $900 was returned to me. Didn't think anything of it at the time with all that was going on.

5 years later I get a bill. I am so good about my taxes it took me a while to figure out the mistake. But they found out I owed over $400 in 2006 when they sent me that bill in 2011 and they lost all of her email? $400 bucks. BS BS BS BS.

I'm just waiting for some pony-tailed IT guy working for the IRS to get revenge for being shat on by the agency's "Big Boys" all these years by coming forward--- not to say publicly the "story" is bogus, but to put the emails anonymously on the 'net the way someone did with the Climategate emails, which derailed that utter leftist hoax.

Here comes "garage mahal" to distract this thread from the fact that the government is hiding its actions from the public. The IRS was trying to silence political adversaries and deprive those adversaries of God-given rights.

The left won't get audited because government workers are overwhelmingly Democrats.

Not after President Scott Walker signs laws terminating all Government employee unions, and ending Civil Service. I guess the Democrats will really miss the filibuster when they find out they can't stop those laws with their minority in the Senate.

I've been thinking of posting this comment for some time. Perhaps I should have sooner.

Lerner's reaction to being told her emails are gone forever has been reported as "stuff happens," and that she was being philosophic about it. This is supposed to bolster her and the IRS' version of events.

I read it and thought you're kidding. Not "what do you mean all my emails are gone for good", but stuff happens. Real people don't react that way. You can be very "philosophic", indeed relieved, to hear that your intent to destroy evidence was in fact successful.

How no one in the press to my knowledge has seemed to have the same reaction is just not credible to me unless they're all "on message."

You are a piece of shit Garage. You and the people that think like you.

Us effeminate southern homos, would be real comfortable with breaking you and your fellow travelers into little bitty pieces, catching your fish, killing your game, then laughing at your grotesque fat women as they begged for some attention from real men.

No. Why should they? The question "What do you think of your Congressman is an entirely different question than "What do you think of Congress".

These low Congressional approval ratings are purely a result of the polarization that comes from gerrymandering. Back when it had to be done by hand you'd always have districts whose representatives had to be sensitive to both sides of the political spectrum.

No longer. Now the districts are drawn up by computers with up-to-the-minute demographic data. When everyone's in a safe seat there's no downside to being nasty and dismissive of the other side.

The government is turned against us and the Leftists here are ready to go Full Fascist."

ROTFLMAO!!!!! I'm typing while making a muscle! Stiff upper lip, there, old man. I can see the caps-lock key on alert. No need to go there - don't do anything "crazy." You just don't get it:

Lincoln and his Black Republicans would've stopped you. And what you've done, to think you've earned the right to MY political allegiance, I don't know - I haven't voted since I learned your name.

It's my opinion you sully the dignity, and long civil rights record, of my party.

So I'm a Republican offering as much help as has been given in building something useful for a country. You drift out of reach - THEN - I offer you a life line. It's the American Way. Got Paul Ryan's stamp of approval on it. After you're dead, I still feel good about myself, because I tried to make a difference. You can't make me feel guilty. You've got a bad culture.

Now, a little advice - don't play the victim - no matter what happens. Yes, they're going to take your bootstraps, repeatedly, before telling you to pull yourself up. Smile. You can't be seen having a bad day. Deal with it. In 2042 you'll be a minority. If you start thinking like a minority, now, you'll have a huge head start. If you start running, you'll have a huge head start, too - but they'll catch you. You can't hide a point-of-view.

You're correct. The Dems are going to lie, cheat, steal, and maybe smash the statuary and set the house on fire so as not to leave as much evidence. This much is true.

And then there's the whole thing about conquering your women, letting gays spruce the place up, and giving the land back to the Natives so they can get their "spiritual" mojo back or whatever - I'm talking long ball here, you know, but that's a discussion for another time. ANYWAY - you got the result correct:

Where you're wrong is the reason WHY all this is occurring.

It's not that I flipped to the other side - I'm still a Republican.

It's not that anybody's trying to distract you - please, carry on without me.

It's not that anybody's going "Full Fascist" because standing aside takes no effort on my part and - as we all know - when the cat's away the mice WILL play.

No, all it is, is - you're an asshole.

In my opinion, perfectly suitable for rehabilitation (or framing) but that's no longer just up to me. As you know, there's plenty of scholars working out the kinks between the many reparations schemes to be presented to Congress, but to one's surprise I hear they all seem to be unanimous on the "What do we do with the white people?" question so I ain't got nothing to do with it.

I do know it's a four hundred year program and your screams falling on deaf ears is the first part of the initiation.

Skeptical voter has it! Set up a golf date for Obama with Elin Nordegren and make sure she brings along her 3 wood. We would have a special prosecutor before they got to the turn. Never mess with a Swedish woman brandishing a 3 wood. Never.

Someone found out that a company called Sonasoft advertises that they have the IRS as a customer.

http://www.sonasoft.com/company/customers/

"The world’s leading companies rely on Sonasoft products to secure their operational data. Sonasoft’s award winning disaster recovery software for Microsoft Servers: SonaVault, SonaExchange, and SonaSQL is known for ease of use and reliability for email archiving, backup, recovery, replication and migration needs."

It matters not one bit that the alleged corruption and destruction of these emails occurred before Congress started its IRS investigation.

The instant Lois Lerner or anyone else contemplated legal action against the Tea Partiers, she had a mandatory, affirmative duty under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to safeguard electronically stored information, issue a litigation halt (on any further destruction) and instruct her IT people to take extra measures to safeguard that data. Lois Lerner, as an in-house attorney, of all people should have known and surely did know this.

When she began contemplating legal action against the TPs -- which we know she was, as early as October of 2010 -- her duty was triggered at that moment. It's fundamental. And it is blatant malpractice that she took no steps to safeguard that data from that moment on. To the contrary, she permitted her hard drive and the hard drives of at least five other IRS employees to be "recycled" -- in other words, thrown away.

In the U.S.Code, this deliberate spoliation of evidence would be corruptly endeavoring to impede the due administration of the Internal Revenue Code -- among many other corrupt endeavors.

And what of the emails between the IRS, the FBI and DOJ dating back to at least October of 2010, when Lerner helpfully forwarded along the TP's tax returns to the FBI to assist in possible criminal prosecutions? Did the FBI and DOJ hard drives crash, too? Did their employees also flagrantly disregard their legal duties to preserve those emails?

Why hasn't our so-called impartial, independent IRS insisted upon an independent investigation of its attorneys' malpractice and spoliation of evidence? Instead it is arrogantly demanding that Congress close the IRS investigation "because, gosh, sorry, but we lost all the evidence."

The blatant lies these people tell, as they brazenly conduct their cover-up operations right under our noses shocks the conscience. But just as sickening and more shocking is that so few Americans seem to care.

The thing that concerns me the most is this IRS over reach will probably be answered by a u-haul loaded with explosives or a shoot up at an IRS office. And it will be some poor s.o.b IRS clerk who had nothing to do with this abuse paying a horrible price. But pricks like Lerner, Miller and Shulman will sleep comfortably in their beds untouched.

Since they (Obama, IRS, etc) can and have done this and, for all intents and purposes, gotten away with it, they're going to move heaven and earth to throw the election...in 2016. It's all pretty darn obvious, folks.

The big difference between Paul Ryan and his Democratic predecessors like Cong. Dingell or Waxman is that Dingell and Waxman picked on private citizens and private companies that (a) were essentially defenseless (and ambushed and not allowed to respond, etc.) and (b) were not proper targets for Congressional hearings in any event. Congress is not the lord and master of every business in the land. It works for the people, including the private citizens it calls before it. However, it is the responsibility of Congress to exercise oversight over the Executive, which is far from helpless; indeed, that is one of Congress's primary responsibilities. Ryan did a pretty good job of that today, perhaps even breaking through the media wall of silence on these IRS abuses.

Rhythm and Balls said...Oh I see. So you used a video that cut off his response. Ryan admitted that he was just pontificating and politicking and not actually asking a question for most of his "air time". Not surprising."

R&B's is shocked, shocked I tell you that politicians use up the majority of their question time with statements.

Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.

This conduct has included one or more of the following:

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office;

he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office;

and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance.

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, authorized and permitted to be maintained a secret investigative unit within the office of the President, financed in part with money derived from campaign contributions, which unlawfully utilized the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in covert and unlawful activities, and attempted to prejudice the constitutional right of an accused to a fair trial.

He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities ..

In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.****

Well, let's end this evening's discussion on a happy note, shall we? At least we know the IRS will take extraordinary care with our medical records. The IRS would never, ever use them against us -- say, forward them to the FBI or a political opponent or whoever else you tin-foil folks might imagine. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in this great country of ours. Enough talk of this phony, smidgenless scandal. Sleep easy, free people.

Like all the other lies the White house and the IRS has spun about this illegal persecution of conservative groups, this one about computer malfunctions, no backups etc. will come out in the wash too. Who has had the better track record in telling the truth here?

Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies...

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, she really did vote for a black Dick Nixon.

Still waiting for a single democrat with enough integrity to ask, what did Obama know, and when did he know it.